


Confetti trails

by Resa_Saso



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: And a little bit of Rassilon shaming, Because no one likes Rassilon, F/M, Fluff, Humour, except..., oh you'll see, semi-au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 10:43:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15193052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resa_Saso/pseuds/Resa_Saso
Summary: She was watching him every day. He didn't know who she was and what she wanted. Until he figured it out.





	Confetti trails

She watched him every day.

The Master never quite looked at her directly, just once or twice observed her from out of the corner of his eyes.  
He noticed her presence at all times though; feeling as if he was being watched all through the lessons.  
  
It didn’t make him nervous; why would it? An audience was what made him shine. But it did make him wonder what exactly she wanted from him. It _was_ him she was after, wasn’t it?  
  
It could hardly be this pile of idiots he was training- none of them was in any way special (except in their idiocy). And none of them communicated with her in any way, or even paid her any attention.  
  
If he didn’t know any better, he’d say she was a ghost, coming here to haunt him.  
  
Well, he wasn’t one to be afraid of ghosts, and so he simply continued teaching his army of losers how to be an army of approximately useful soldiers, paying her no attention at all.  
  
She didn’t seem to mind, just stood there, watching. He felt her eyes on him all the time, like two warm sparks of sunshine on his back. Normally, he would get annoyed or angry, would tell her to get lost, but something inside of him was intrigued by her. And so, he let her stick around, wordlessly, with the vague feeling that she knew.

 

On the second day, his students seemed to notice her. With a loud sigh, so every single one of them would notice how displeased he was, the Master demanded they get in a straight line with their backs to her.

He wasn’t sure why it bothered him. They were distracted, yes, whispering and exchanging meaningful glances, but that wasn’t what really annoyed him. It was them _looking_ at her.

He gave them instructions and brief glances while they were fighting each other without much real effort, but his focus lay on the woman leaning against the tree in the distance, her arms crossed in front of her chest, peacefully looking back at him.

Who was she?

Her hair was blonde, but seemed to shine golden underneath the light of two suns. She looked like someone who belonged to the sky rather than the firm ground beneath her. The red grass was brushing heavy looking boots, and he felt like it should tickle her ankles because her trousers didn’t seem to fit, but she didn’t even seem to notice it. Her long coat flapped in the soft wind in a way that made her look almost majestic and there was something in her eyes… Warmth, he noticed. Warmth, and appreciation- and he wondered which of both was responsible for him not being able to avert his gaze.

 

On the third day, the Master had enough. As usual, his students stood in a row in front of him, awaiting their instructions; and as usual, the woman stood in the back, watching him from afar. With a little huff, he distributed tools and guns- which he had carefully disassembled and manipulated last night- telling his little pile of idiots to try and fix them as quickly as possible.

Without turning around to her, he held up his basket, with one gun left inside.

“You too.”

When he finally turned around, she had stepped closer hesitantly, a baffled look on her very expressive face.

The Master smirked. “If you’re going to watch every single lesson, you might as well participate,” he stated. “I don’t like lazy people.”

She stared at him in surprise for a few seconds, then shrugged and grabbed the gun with a bright grin.

“On it!”

It was the first time he had ever heard her voice and he really wasn’t sure why his mind registered this fact as if it was special – It clearly wasn’t. She wasn’t. He couldn’t stand her voice from the first time hearing it; it was far too cute. He didn’t like cute.  
  
Clearing his suddenly very dry throat, he stepped to the other end of the line, watching his students struggle with the task at hand. He observed them for a while wordlessly, rolled his eyes at especially hopeless cases and helped out with brief explanations where he could actually see potential.

When he had reached her again, she had finished.  
  
The Master stared at her, stunned for a few seconds, while she held the gun towards him with a confident – and overly enthusiastic – smile. He took it silently, aimed at the nearest tree and shot.

It worked perfectly.

“That was… supposed to take up the whole day,” he muttered, and to his utter horror, he could hear her giggle behind him.

Now, this was enough.

“Fine,” he smiled, his tone as cold as his eyes. “Let’s step up the challenge a bit.”

And with that, he pulled out his old Tissue Compression Eliminator and his laser screwdriver and began to disassemble his old TCE. Everyone around them had stopped what they were doing and were watching with wide eyes while he gave her the pieces.

She looked down at the tiny parts in her hands with raised eyebrows, and he snorted.

“Have fun. The rest of you, get back to work.”

No one dared to openly neglect his orders, but all of them seemed unfocused now, throwing glances at the woman again and again. She had sat down in the high grass, staring at the pieces with a concentrated frown.

With a smirk, the Master watched her from the corner of his eye, while helping his other students with their task. He saw her getting started, grabbing for tools mindlessly while not taking her eyes off the pieces. An actual screwdriver was clamped behind her ear, pliers were stuck between her teeth and her eyes were narrowed from thinking.

It was adorable.

He was very sure he didn’t like adorable.

Had been sure.

Time was a fragile concept, even for Time Lords.

Actually, it really wasn’t.

He was sure he was going to be sure sometime again.  
  
When he checked up on her work, he was satisfied to see that she was struggling. He held out his hand to see what she had yet achieved, and examined the little weapon with interest.

The Master wasn’t easily impressed, but he couldn’t help himself this time – she had done a good job. There were a few flaws in her construction, which was to be expected, but all in all she had done better than he would’ve anticipated.

“You wired it a bit wrong,” he finally sighed, ready to admit defeat. “And you confused these two parts here, see? Other than that, you’re doing good.”

When he gave her back the half-done TCE, she looked at him with a warm gleam in her eyes and smiled. Confused, he smiled back, then shook his head and walked away.

What the hell was wrong with him.  


He finally figured it out the next day, when she handed him the finished TCE with the widest grin he had ever seen on a person’s face. He aimed at the same tree, perfectly ready to shrink it into oblivion, yet unprepared for what actually happened. A wave of confetti shot out of his once deadly weapon, spraying his shoes and the red grasses.

He heard her chuckle and gave her a dark glance, which left her utterly unimpressed.

“You’re a great teacher,” she smiled, then walked away, still giggling quietly on her way back. The aspiring soldiers around him were trying their best to hold back a laugh while he was still staring motionless at the confetti on his shoes.

“Damn you, Doctor,” the Master snarled and then threw the TCE into the grass with seething rage.

 

They met on the fifth day, eye to eye for the first time. She hadn’t come to his lesson that day, but caught him in the evening, when he was packing together his stuff underneath the setting suns.

“You know,” she greeted him from behind, and he almost let his bag fall in surprise. “I was serious yesterday. You are a good teacher.”

He grimaced while turning around to her. “I sure as hell didn’t teach you how to put confetti into my TCE.”

The Doctor laughed. “No, you didn’t. And I actually spent the whole night on that, it’s a really complex little thing you’ve constructed there.” She sighed. “I guess I just like seeing your talents used for something good for once… Even if it’s an army.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You, approving of me teaching an army? Who would’ve thought.”

She shrugged. “Basically, it’s you teaching them self-defence while I do everything in my power to prevent war from happening.”

The Master snorted. “And you think you can do that?”

Her eyebrows raised in amusement as she let herself fall into the grass, patting the spot next to her. “You heard me say ‘everything in my power’, yes?” she asked softly. “I don’t only _think_ I can do that.”

With a roll of his eyes, the Master sat down next to her. “The worst thing is that I believe you,” he muttered grumpily, which made her laugh.

Damn, he liked her laugh. He had always liked her laugh. Sometimes he liked it so much that he wondered why he had spent whole lifetimes trying to prevent it from happening.

He had come to the conclusion that it hurt too much to like anything about her

 “So, how come?” she finally asked. “That you’re teaching here, I mean. Doesn’t sound like you at all.”

He nodded, with the most long-suffering expression he could manage. “They promised me full redemption if I did. Which hopefully, someday, will include a TARDIS and a new regeneration cycle should I ever need one.”

The Doctor snorted. “Until then you’ll have a long list of new crimes they can charge you for.”

“I think you underestimate my capability for burning through my regenerations, Doctor.”

She laughed. “Point taken.”

They watched for a few minutes peacefully how the suns disappeared behind the horizon, diving them into glaring red light.

“What about you?” he finally asked. “What keeps you here?”

She smiled at him from the side. 

 

 

To be fair, the Master had started to rather enjoy being a teacher. He liked being smarter than everyone else, he liked pushing people around and he even managed to grow a little bit of patience with his students. A little bit.

But when the council announced the festivities to celebrate the new Lord President’s election (which, to be fair, was a huge reason to celebrate, because, as it turned out, nobody liked Rassilon. Nobody. Except Rassilon himself,) his patience was wearing very thin indeed.

“Well, this…” the Master announced with a snort. “Is not how you dance.”  
  
He was responsible for teaching them how to fight, not dance, but he couldn’t watch the debacle any longer. A slow, disappointed headshake was all that stopped him from jumping into action that very moment.  
He watched them stomp around, oblivious to his disparagements, for minutes now; each and every one was ignoring their tasks because they were too excited for their silly little dance. But he couldn’t watch this any longer.  
“This is how you do it.” And without any sort of further explanation, he started whirling one of his students around, a storm of unforeseeable moves and directions, making his partner laugh in confusion while he tried to keep up.  
Not even a little out of breath, the Master stopped after a minute. All eyes were on them for a second, then the first student raised his voice nervously.

“Can you… teach us _that_?”

The rest of the day took a rather unexpected turn. The Master began to realize appreciation could go very weird ways. but didn’t mind it anyway and taught his soldiers - with more patience than he would’ve thought he had - all the basics about dancing.

Once he finally suggested a little break to catch some breath, a voice behind him proclaimed, “You know, I think I’m in need of a dancing lesson myself.”

The Master didn’t turn around, knowing who had spoken without even looking.

“If you’re asking me out on a date,” he asked with a devious little grin into nothing. “Do it properly.”

The soldiers exchanged some amused glances, while the Doctor looked seriously taken aback for a second. Then she smiled, walking a few steps closer, until she stood right behind the Master and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“My dearest Master,” she asked in sugar-coated voice. “Will you take me out to the festivities the Council is planning to hold tomorrow evening, and be my partner in dance and conversation?”

He turned around with a roll of his eyes.

“Fine,” he snorted, trying his best to hold back his laughter. “Pick me up at seven.”

There was a little bit of a mumble behind the Master and he shot his group of students a sharp glare.

“She’s been a man for 12 annoyingly stubborn incarnations, she picks me up. End of it.”

No one dared to object.

 

She picked him up at eight, which wasn’t a surprise to either of them so he didn’t even pretend to be mad about it. He also wasn’t able to even pretend to be able to breathe the first second he saw her in that blue dress she had on, her hair up and a wide grin on her face that was meant entirely for him.

“We’re walking?” he asked, and the Doctor nodded enthusiastically, her eyes fixed on the shining stars above them. “It’s a beautiful evening.”

His eyes fixed on the Doctor’s, which were sparkling in the starlight and filled with childlike wonder, the Master couldn’t help but find he agreed.

He offered her his arm and they walked side by side in a strange kind of silence that seemed to come with the peace and calmness of the night sky. After a little while, when they hadn’t reached the festivities yet but could already hear the music, the Doctor admitted quietly, “You know, what I said was true”.

The Master threw her a questioning glance, one eyebrow raised ever so slightly.

“I really could use some dance lessons.” She laughed a little, and he shook his head in bewilderment.

“You can’t dance this time around?”

“Well, I could!” she answered in fake indignity and started a complicated mix of the most ridiculous solo dance moves the Master had ever seen in his whole life. (And he had seen her Eleventh incarnation dance, thank you very much.)

“Okay,” he laughed. “Okay, please stop and step on my feet.”

“Please stop!” she repeated in an outrage that was betrayed by her giggling, and did as she was told. He led her a few steps over the grasses they had been walking on, but she wouldn’t stay impassive for long, starting to move in an unpredictable and clumsy fashion.

 The Master burst out laughing and she watched him while biting her lower lip.

“Will you still go dancing with me?” she asked with a tiny little smile and he rolled his eyes, offering her his arm yet again.

“Of course I will, dearest.”

She grinned wildly. “See, it’s good I’m a national hero here, so no one will dare to tell me I can’t dance... Will they?”

The Master snarled. “Oh no, they won’t.”

She laughed, clinging to his arm and pulling close to him. “Oh? Because they’re all afraid of the big bad Master?”

He frowned for a second, then turned his head towards her. “Please tell me this wasn’t a fairy tale analogy.”

“And why ever not?” the Doctor grinned. “You can be the big bad wolf and I am Little Red Riding Hood!”

He looked her up and down, trying his best to hold back a laugh and failing miserably.

“What?” she asked. “What?”

He snorted. “You, my dear, aren’t ginger enough to be Little Red Riding Hood.”

For a second she looked at him flabbergasted, then she began sulking, then interrupted her own sulk with laughing.

“You’re rude!” she pointed out while they continued their march to the festival, and he nodded in amusement.

“Glad you noticed.”

“Took me only a few thousand years,” she mumbled into her non-existent beard and the Master grinned.

“And yet you asked me out on a date.”

 

“Run away with me,” she whispered into his ear that evening while he was holding her in his arms, swaying softly to the calm music, leading her as well as he could.

He thought back to the time when she had first asked him this, and his hearts skipped a few beats.

“What, tonight?” he asked, because he felt like he had to say something, not because he really cared. Every cell in his body wanted to make him shout ‘Yes!’, but he held back, cautious, scared. So scared.

She rested her forehead on his chest.

“I’ve learned something about you today that I didn’t know before.”

“And what’s that?” he asked, his fingers tangled up on her golden hair while she lifted leaned up a bit, her lips suddenly so close to his that he could taste her breath.

“Sometimes I just have to ask properly.” She smiled a sad smile. “I just wish I had realized that sooner.”

He kissed her before she could say anything else, pulled her even closer than she already was, was utterly unable to let go. He wanted to get lost in her, get drunk on her, never, ever be without her and registered her arms around his neck with relief.

“Yes,” he breathed, and after another last, lingering kiss, they sneaked out of the halls, into the night, leaving nothing on Gallifrey but confetti flying in the wind.

**Author's Note:**

> Zedrobber wrote a hilarious sequel of Thirteen sneaking the "fixed" TCE into Ainley!Master's inapt hands, so check that out as well, it's great
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/15204272


End file.
